Question Session 3: Sharkman Biology!

Throughout the course of the comic, we’ve had a few people ask some interesting things about Skärva. What type of shark is he? Does he have gills? Does he have bones? Let’s talk a bit about sharkmen!

It’s important to remember that Tiberius Skärva and his descendants were not cursed to be sharks, but to look like them. (The gods had their reasons for this specific animal, which you’ll find out in due time.) People might call them sharkmen, but “shark-like humans” would be more accurate – just a lot less concise, and fun. They are not anthropomorphic sharks in the sense that they are a totally different species. Apart from a lack of body hair and abnormal skin color, they are completely human from the neck down.

So that means no gills. The gods didn’t want the curse to come with any advantages.

As for their heads, the Skärvas have a modified version of the human skull around the cranium to protect their villainous brains, attached to snouts and jaws made entirely of cartilage. Remember that our own noses are made of tough cartilage too! The cartilage gets softer further out along the rostrum, allowing for some flexibility and springiness. You may wonder how we know so much about their head structure! Good question!

Squishy nose-tips.

…Sharks are known for having multiple rows of teeth in their mouths at a time which continuously grow and move forward throughout their lifetimes, with the back rows being more or less “reserves” as sharks lose teeth at a high rate. But don’t worry! Either because they didn’t want the poor Skärvas to be completely horrifying, or they didn’t do much research on their own creations, the gods didn’t mess with all that, and a Skärva only has one row of teeth.

As far as the ears, while they have been noted to somewhat resemble a shark’s fin, it really has nothing to do with that. Pointy ears have long been a sign of curses or disfavor from the gods, as seen prominently with the Lurkins.

That, and apparently stroking a shark on the nose can make it go catatonic. This is apparently due to some special organs called Ampullae of Lorenzini sharks (and some other sea creatures) have in their snouts that let them detect electrical currents in the water, and I don’t imagine our sharkmen actually have those, BUT… this all leads to some interesting possibilities, and I don’t want to rule them out for now. The idea of Lorelei petting his nose to calm him down is just irresistible.

I imagine Blank never would have figured such a thing out, though. Punching isn’t really in his style.

Y’know our pirate friends might know about that. They probably regularly deal with sharks. I can just picture Gold Gills grabbing Skarva and just holding him there for a moment while he seethes but is unable to do anything. XD